It seems it's not just me who's been feeling the pinch lately. There was an article in the paper the other day about increasing food prices and how it's affecting people's spending habits.
Sales of "third category beer-like drinks" as they're called, have gone up about 10%, and real beer sales have gone down about 12%. (Beer prices went up last month due to high cost of malt, etc.
According to the paper, these third-category beers are made of corn or peas!
That would explain the unusual taste I guess.